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Monday, November 22, 2010

Enthusiasm

I have been working regularly on two projects, but by the beginning of last week I realized I was dragging. On my way toward the stairs to my workroom, I would notice the computer and check e-mail, even though I had done that less than half an hour before. I even spent one morning getting a window open and washing the accumulated dust and spiderwebs off a storm window that hadn't been cleaned in--well, let's just say a long time.

I'm liking where these projects are going so I was certainly not ready to abandon them, but I kept thinking about the most flamboyantly colored and most unstructured of those art quilts I had seen at the Packwood House, and these were far from what I was working on. One section of one of the projects--that one I am working on now--involves lots of little pieces in various shades of gray, and I had worked with a lot of gray this summer in my chickadee quilt. While the other project was more free form in conception, the execution of it requires some concentration and detail work. I needed some color and some freedom!

So I went in search of a good background--a deep purple hand-dye seemed appropriate, put it up on my working wall and then started cutting out variously colored roundish shapes.

I have no idea where exactly this dotty piece is going at this point, but I smile every time I pass it, and I am not only back to working on my other two projects as well, I am working on them with enthusiasm. It's amazing what a little color will do. By Friday I even had to force myself to take a break to vacuum and finish putting a meal together in preparation for dinner guests that evening.